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MISSION STATEMENT - This site is dedicated to professional music photographers. Our mission is to advocate sound business practices, warn against predatory client practices, provide helpful and educational resources, and foster a sense of community. All discussions related to capturing, processing, cataloging and licensing music photographs are welcome.

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These are actual photo release forms photographers were asked to sign in exchange for receiving their photo pass at the venue or prior to arriving. They are provided here to educate all concert photographers about the egregious, rights grabbing language that management and promoters and artists are taking away from photographers. If you are presented any release form at a concert that asks you to turn over any rights to your photographs, or to turn over copies of your images, or restricts use of your photographs, you are encouraged to corral all of the photographers there and ask all of them to decline (do not sign) the form.

I was very active in the Los Angeles punk scene during the birth of the movement in the late 70's and early 80's. Although I have done many types of photography from portraits, street photography and assemblage art photographs, to architectural photography, I am probably best known for my punk photography. My work was featured extensively in the film "AMERICAN HARDCORE" and one of my photographs was used for the cover of the book by the same name.

DPReview.com has excerpts from an interview where Foveon and Sigma leads discuss the new 15MP x 3 sensor that was announced at Photikina 2010. This new sensor will be featured in the forthcoming Sigma SD1 that Sigma plans to release in the spring of 2011. The new sensor is 4800 x 3200 pixels times 3, one layer for each of the three RGB color channels.

This is what every music photographer aspires to achieve. Follow along as Fstoppers goes behind the scenes with professional sports and concert photographer David Bergman as he takes us backstage at the New Meadowlands Stadium with one of the biggest bands in the world. David shares his equipment setup, talks about gaining tour access to produce compelling concert photographs, and meets with the band. Check out more of David's work at http://www.davidbergman.net and http://prints.Tourphotographer.com, See more Behind the Scenes videos at www.Fstoppers.com.

I received a link to this from Cradoc Software, the makers of fotoBiz and fotoQuote. The article is written by Paul Melchner and makes some excellent points. We see more and more publications moving from print to electronic distribution. We need adapt how we license our work to insure we are paid fairly for web usage.

With a 202 x 205 mm (8 x 8 inch) sensor that can capture 60 fps with a mere 0.3 lux of light, could concert videography produce individual still frames so clean and large that there would be no need for traditional concert photography?

During 1975 and 1976, renowned underground photo-journalist Kim Gottlieb, and her husband, Island publicity head Jeff Walker, documented what is now widely recognized as the Golden Age of Reggae. Over two years of historic trips to Jamaica and exclusive meetings in Los Angeles, Kim took iconic photographs of the artists who would go on to define the genre and captivate a generation.

On on the Yahoo! MusicPhotography group, there has been a long running discussion for years about the legitimacy of photo pass agreements. Some argue they are unenforceable because contract law requires both sides have an opportunity to negotiate. A member of the Yahoo group, Bob Leafe, recently raised a good point about these photo pass agreements. These agreements have been in practice for over two decades. In a court of law, this length of time might make them "acceptable practice" whether or not we like them.

The following rights grabbing language appears in the official rules of the "Me & My Taylor Photo Contest" at the Taylor Guitars website. To see the full contest rules, click the "Official Rules" link on that page. The text below appears about half way down.

Photographers are asked to sign increasingly restrictive agreements when they pick up their photo passes. Some restrict the use your photos to the specific edition of the specific publication for which you are shooting. Many go as far as transferring all rights in your photographs to the artist or management company leaving you with nothing. Any agreement that limits your use of the photographs you take is "predatory" because it contains "rights grabbing" language. In this article, I describe what red flags to look for and provide you with several examples extracted from real artist agreements. These really do exist and are getting worse every day.